I don't propose bringing you news about
music CD releases very often, just on special occasions (and very much
dictated by my own personal tastes - sorry!)

Fans
of 80s synth-pop group the Eurythmics have been waiting for an official
announcement about the re-mastering of their back catalogue for a very
long time (the discs were originally scheduled for release last year, but
mysteriously shelved without explanation).

The wait will apparently soon be over.
SonyBMG Music Entertainment (UK) Ltd will release eight of the group's
studio albums on November the 7th: In the Garden (1981), Sweet
Dreams (Are Made of This) (1983), Touch (1983), Be Yourself
Tonight (1985), Revenge (1986), Savage (1988), We Too
Are One 1989) and Peace (1999).

Each album has been re-mastered by Dave
Stewart and engineer Ian Cooper, at Metropolis Studios, London. Each album
will feature between four and seven bonus tracks, including ten tracks
that have never been released before, and several notable cover versions.
(The press release says it's eleven tracks that have never been released
before, but I have it on good authority that their "unreleased" cover
version of Satellite of Love was actually made available to the
public, on an NME cassette).

Each album will be available in two
formats: a six-panel digipack, and a standard jewel case. Each reissue has
been re-designed by Laurence Stevens of LSD Studio (the agency responsible
for all the original albums since In The Garden). The digipacks
will feature re-mastered sleeve artwork, rejected and alternate concept
designs, unseen archive photo's, and single sleeves, along with detailed
liner notes by Eurythmics historian Phill Savidge.

RRP for the digipack versions is £9.99. The
jewel case versions are £8.99.

There'll also be Boxed, a Deluxe
Collector's Box set, which will feature custom artwork by original
Eurythmics designer Laurences Stevens. This set has an RRP of £60.

A new nineteen-track greatest hits album
will also be released. Titled Ultimate Collection, the disc will
feature two newly-recorded tracks: I've Got A Life and Was It
Just Another Love Affair? The former will be released as a single, on
October the 31st. The Ultimate Collection will be released on
November the 7th, with an RRP of £10.99.

The bonus tracks are:

In The Garden

1. Le Sinestre - Taken from 'Never Gonna
Cry Again' 7"
2. Heartbeat Heartbeat - Taken from 'Belinda' 7"
3. Never Gonna Cry Again (Live) - Taken From 'This Is The House' 12"
4. 4/4 In Leather (Live) - Taken From 'This Is The House' 12"
5. Take Me To Your Heart (Live) - Taken From 'This Is The House' 12"

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

11. Home Is Where The Heart Is - Taken
from 'This Is The House' 7"
12. Monkey Monkey - Taken from 'Love Is A Stranger' 7"
13. Baby's Gone Blue - Taken from 'Sweet Dreams....' 12"
14. Sweet Dreams (Hot Remix) - Taken from 'Sweet Dreams.... 1991' 12"
15. Love Is A Stranger (Coldcut Remix) - From from 'Love Is A Stranger
1991' 12"
16. Satellite of Love - Previously Unreleased (see note, above!)

Touch

10. You Take Some Lentils… And You Take
Some Rice - Taken from 'Who's That Girls?' 7"
11. ABC ( Freeform) - Taken from 'Who's That Girl?' 12"
12. Plus Something Else - Taken from 'Right By Your Side' 12"
13. Paint A Rumour (Long Version) - Taken from 'Here Comes The Rain
Again' 12"
14. Who's That Girl (Live) - Taken from 'Miracle Of Love' 12"
15. Here Comes The Rain Again (Live) - Previously Unreleased
16. Fame - Previously Unreleased

Be Yourself Tonight

10. Grown Up Girls - Taken from 'There
Must Be An Angel
(Playing With My Heart)' 7"
11. Tous Les Garçons Et Les - Taken from 'It's Alright (Baby's Coming
Back)' 12"
12. Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves (ET Mix) - Taken from 'Sisters
Are Doin' It For Themselves' 12"
13. Would I Lie To You? (ET Mix) - Taken from 'Would I Lie To You?' 12"
14. Conditioned Soul (Live) - Previously Unreleased
15. Hello I Love You - Previously Unreleased

11. Precious - Taken from 'Revival' 7"
12. See No Evil - Taken from 'The King And Queen Of America' 7"
13. King & Queen of America (Dance Remix) - Taken from 'The King And
Queen Of America' 12"
14. Angel (Choir Version) - Taken from 'Angel' 7"
15. Last Night I Dreamt The Somebody Loved Me - Previously Unavailable

A Roobarb's DVD Forum thread
discussing the Eurythmics can be found
here.

DVD NEWS

Warner Home Video will release John
Huston's classic 1981 football movie Escape To Victory (a.k.a.
Victory) on DVD on October the 24th. The disc will be exclusively
available via HMV. The film will be presented in it's original 2.35:1
ratio, with Dolby Surround Stereo audio. The RRP is £15.99.

SOUNDTRACK NEWS

TVT
Records has released two new soundtrack CDs this month.

The first, for the Luc Besson-produced
action flick Transporter 2, marks the first collaboration
between the label and Recall Music, and Besson's Europa Corp.

The disc features four powerful score cues,
totalling about ten minutes, by Alexandre Azaria (a.k.a. Replicant), Grand
National's hypnotic Talk Amongst Yourselves, Mylo's (Paris Four Hundred),
DJ Cam (Voodoo Child), and a couple of tracks by The Servant,
including Cells, (an instrumental version of this track was
recently used to good effect in the Sin City theatrical trailer).

The
disc of Transporter 2 couldn't be more unlike TVT's soundtrack for
Everything is Illuminated, Liev Schreiber's directorial debut,
which is about an eccentric young man searching for the woman who saved
his grandfather's life during World War II.

The disc is a delightful collection of
Eastern European folk tunes, many of them composed by Paul Cantelon, a
former musical prodigy (who, following a car accident as a teenager,
suffered from amnesia, and had to learn his craft again from scratch). His
contribution accounts for more than half of the hour-long album. Some of
you may know Cantelon from his association with 90s folk-tinged band The
Wild Colonials. The disc also features two tracks by Eugene Hütz's gypsy /
rock group Gogol Bordello (Bublitschki and Start Wearing Purple).

26th September 2005

ZETA MINOR NEWS

There's a new DVD review on the site
today: contributor Mark Aldridge has taken a close look at the BFI's
Early Cinema - Primitives and Pioneers two-disc collection of short
films made before 1910. Is it a set worth adding to your collection?
Check out Mark's review, by clicking here,
or on the sleeve image, right.

I've added a new page to the Cult Televisionsection today. It features
photo's I took on the set of the BBC TV series Neverwhere, way back
in 1996. Click
here to go to the new Neverwhere
page.

The Incoming
page has been given a quick update - all the titles listed as coming out
today have been checked against a couple of online retailers, to make sure
they're still expected today. There are a couple that were due, but seem
to have been delayed. Lots of good stuff out today, including the second
volumes of Pipkins and Goodnight Sweetheart,
and a number of essential Dennis Potter titles.

DVD NEWS

Buena
Vista Home Entertainment will release the fourth season of the popular TV
spy series Alias on November the 21st.

The six-disc box set will feature
twenty-two episodes, and more than four hours of bonus material. Guest
stars include Kelly Macdonald and Isabella Rossellini.

Bonus material includes an extended
episode, Nocturne, which includes a previously-deleted Russian Roulette
scene; deleted scenes; Jennifer Garner interview; Meet Mia
featurette (on actress Mia Maestro): Director's Diary;
Marshall's World featurette; blooper reel; Guest Stars
featurette; and an unspecified number of audio commentaries. RRP for the
set is believed to be £49.99.

The recent American remake of the Japanese
ghost story Dark Water, which stars Jennifer Connolly, Pete
Postlethwaite, Tim Roth and John C. Reilly, will be released on DVD by
Buena Vista Home Entertainment on November the 28th.

The disc will feature an "in depth"
documentary, Beneath the Surface: The Making of Dark Water (which
appears to be broken down into segments: Beyond the Horror, An
Island Apart, A Director's Vision, Mother and Daughter,
Water by Design and Deep Water). Other features include
things titled The Sound of Terror and Extraordinary Ensemble; deleted
scenes (Dahlia at the Laundromat, Ceci and Kyle In The Car);
Analysing Dark Water Sequences (Blue Robe and Wall of
Water); an interactive Bathroom Scene (which will apparently
allow the viewer to see the scene with music only, dialogue only, sound
design only, etc, or with audio commentary); and an alternate sequence,
Wall of Water. Sounds like a feature-packed disc!

No technical details were announced. The
RRP is apparently £19.99.

A
licensing quirk means that it falls to Universal Pictures UK to release
the 1933 version of King Kong in the UK, rather than Warner Home
Video, who are releasing the American editions. This is rather unfortunate
for UK consumers, of course, because Universal Pictures UK have a terrible
reputation among DVD enthusiasts. If you didn't know why that is, then
you're about to find out.

I won't dwell on the various King Kong
DVD sets being released by WHV in the US, suffice to say that there
are three different sets, all featuring what is expected to be a
meticulously-restored print, and packed with what should be worthwhile
bonus features like commentary tracks, Turner Classic Movies and
BBC-produced documentaries, and, in the case of the four-disc set, two
classic films that the film spawned, Mighty Joe Young and The
Son of Kong. You might as well put your orders in now, because the
Warner Home Video sets wipe the floor with the Universal Pictures
offerings.

Universal Pictures is releasing two
editions of the film on December the 5th, both featuring the restored
version of the film.

The first is a single-disc edition, which
will apparently only have a trailer for Peter Jackson's remake as a bonus
feature. It doesn't even appear that the creaky twelve-year-old
documentary It Was Beauty Killed The Beast, which is on
the current edition, will be
included. This disc will have an RRP of £9.99.

There will also be a four-disc edition.
That's where the good news ends! This set will feature the It Was
Beauty Killed The Beast documentary, a twelve page collector's
booklet, and two additional films: King Kong Escapes and King
Kong Versus Godzilla. The fourth disc - and I advise you to clear away
any sharp objects before continuing - will contain a colourised version
of the film. RRP for this set is £29.99.

I will say no more, except to apologise for
the poor quality of the sleeve image, which came attached to the press
release. I asked for a bigger version, but was told it wouldn't be ready
for a couple of weeks.

Warner
Home Video will release what appears to be a cut-down version of the US
Tarzan Collection DVD set on October the 31st.

The set, which will be exclusive to HMV,
will feature six Tarzan films starring Johnny Weissmuller, spread across
three discs. The films are: Tarzan The Ape Man (1932), Tarzan
and His Mate (1934), Tarzan Escapes (1936), Tarzan Finds a
Son! (1939), Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941) and Tarzan's
New York Adventure (1942).

All the films are presented in 1.33:1
format, with mono audio. Potential customers should note that the films
may well be cut versions, to conform with the BBFC's obligations under the
Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act 1937, which makes it illegal to show
“any scene...organised or directed in such a way as to involve the cruel
infliction of pain and terror on any animal or the cruel goading to terror
of any animal to fury”.

This is, of course, in addition to the lack
of bonus material on the HMV set (the US edition features a new
feature-length documentary, vintage shorts, and theatrical trailers).

The pack-shot here is the US set, but it
was issued as part of the UK press release, so it's likely to form the
basis of the UK set. RRP for the UK edition is £34.99.

Warner Home Video will release three
classic 80s movies on DVD on November the 21st: Ken Russell's Academy
Award-nominated Altered States, Sidney Lumet's 1988 film about
anti-Vietnam activists on run from the FBI, Running on Empty; and
the 1982 adaptation of John Irving's novel The World According to Garp.
No technical specifications were announced, (Running on Empty is
only available as a 4:3 edition in the US). Neither is there any
indication that the various trailers and production notes that are on the
US counterparts will be included. RRP for each film is £15.99. Here's the
US snapper sleeve art, which will, presumably, be adapted for the UK
editions...